This invention relates to resilient bumpers for the sides of vehicles and, more particularly, to a resilient bumper for releasable attachment to the side of a vehicle for protection of the vehicle against damage from impact of a door of another vehicle or the like.
To conserve the amount of space required for parking vehicles, owners of parking ramps and parking lots, as well as civil engineers who design municipal parking areas, make the sizes of individual parking places relatively narrow. As a result, adjacent vehicles are usually so close that an uncarefully opened door of one vehicle will come into contact with the side of an adjacent vehicle. If the contact is sufficiently violent, the finish of one or both vehicles may be damaged, a dent may be made in the side of the contacted vehicle, or both. While many vehicles are provided with a fixed body side molding intended to protect the side of the vehicle, such moldings are often not in the appropriate position to prevent damage from contact with another vehicle door or the like.
Flexibility in positioning a side bumper is, accordingly, desirable. It is also desirable, however, to prevent theft of the side bumper from the vehicle. Moreover, vehicles vary greatly in the size and shape and contour of their sides and doors so that any side bumper must be adaptable to be usable with the variety of different vehicles.
A number of attempts have been made to provide side bumpers for vehicles. These side bumpers generally are made of resilient material and are secured to the vehicle by retaining hooks, suction cups or magnets. The hooks are usually held at the edges of the vehicle doors. In addition, the side bumpers may include an enlarged locking device which fits between an open vehicle door and a vehicle fender, and upon closing and locking the vehicle door, the enlarged locking device will not pass through the opening, thereby preventing theft of the side bumper while in use.
None of these prior art devices, however, are secured and locked to a vehicle through the cooperation of a first fastening member which is attached to the side bumper by an elastic member for adjustable connection of the first fastening member to a desired location on the vehicle. In addition, none of the prior art discloses a second mated fastening member which resides on the vehicle for interconnected cooperation with the first fastening member, the second fastening member residing on the vehicle, even when the side bumper is not in use. Such securement of a side bumper would enable the same side bumper to be used with varying lengths of vehicles without actual length adjustment of the side bumper itself. Furthermore, if the securement for the vehicle side bumper comprised a fastening member on the side bumper as well as a mated fastening member on the vehicle, this two piece cooperation would create an appropriate environment for utilization of a mechanical locking device such as a padlock or key-initiated cylinder lock to prevent theft of the side bumper from the vehicle during use.